Meet...Barbara Ericson! Leader of Renew CS!

What was your Major/Minor? Why did you choose that major?

I got a BS in CS from Wayne State University and a Masters in CS and Engineering at the University of Michigan and finally a PhD in Human Centered Computing from the Georgia Institute of Technology.

I choose to major in computing because I love to help people solve problems. Computing also allows me to be creative.

What courses are you teaching this semester?

I teach SI 206 - Data Oriented Programming. It develops intermediate programming skills in Python while teaching students about object-oriented programming, regular expressions, and working with data from files, websites, APIs and databases.

What internships have you had? What have you learned from them?

I worked for the US Forest Service in college on their tree database. I learned to read the manual and experiment. Even though I was only there for eight weeks I had regular employees asking me how things worked because they didn't have the right background or didn't take the time to read the manual.

What are your future plans?

My goal is to increase diversity in computing by increasing access and success. I increase access by creating free ebooks and online courses. One of my free ebooks, CSAwesome, is endorsed by the College Board for the Advanced Placement Computer Science A course. We had over 22,000 registered users this fall. I am also created a MOOC based on SI 206 that I want secondary teachers and students to take as a fun introduction to textual programming. I increase success by creating and testing new types of practice problems. I have been researching mixed-up code (Parsons) problems for many years. Students are given mixed-up code blocks that they have to place in the correct order. I have been using Parsons problems as active learning exercises in lecture, labs/discussion, and on midterms. Students usually solve these problems faster than writing the equivalent code and most (70-85%) find them useful for learning. However, some students would rather write code from scratch than solve a Parsons problem so we have recently added that capability. We are also exploring using Parsons problems to scaffold students who are struggling while writing code from scratch.

Fun fact about yourself?

I ride horses and jump them over obstacles. I also have three children.